Day 5: New York - The Shake Shack

~LUNCH~
THE SHAKE SHACK
Madison Square Park
E 23rd St & Madison Ave
New York, NY 10010
(212) 889-6600


'Nough said. No standing, people.. Keep walking.

Jackie and I woke up bright and early on Tuesday (April 20th) morning to catch the 7:30AM bus to New York City. For about $20 round trip ticket for each of us, it was a great deal. For whatever reason the bus had the fan on full blast and we were not properly prepared. Jackie ended up moving towards the back of the bus while I stayed up in front.. I had a seat where I could prop my legs up.

Two hours and a numb butt later we made it to New York City. My eyes got wide as I gazed up at the sky scrapers for the first time. It was hustling and bustling even for a weekday. This was New York, alright.

Day 5: New York - Serendipity and Bouchon

DAY 5 - NEW YORK CITY

~AFTER LUNCH DESSERT~
SERENDIPITY 3
225 East 60th Street
Between 2nd and 3rd Avenues
New York, NY 10022
(212) 838-3531

One of the places both Jackie and I wanted to hit up in New York was Serendipity 3. I had gone to the Serendipity 3 in Las Vegas which I briefly mentioned in an earlier post. The one in Vegas had bright pink walls and from what I heard, it was nothing like the original in New York. They were right. As soon as you step in you feel as if you're in someone's home with all of their random collection of stuff on display.

DAY 5: New York - Lupa & L'Arte del Gelato

It's been a few days since I've returned from my trip to Philadelphia to visit my friend Jackie and I'm suffering the consequences of all the eating I've done. All my pants don't fit the way it did before I left... but it was all worth it.

It was undoubtedly the most I've eaten in a 5 day span in all of my life and it was AMAZING. I had no idea Philly had so many awesome restaurants! One of the thoughts I had when I was doing all this eating was how I love my friend. She's one of many friends who LOVE TO EAT. Thanks to her... I ate some damn good food.

As I take you through a tour of the foods I ate I thought it would be an unusual approach by blogging it backwards. From the last meal of the last day to the very first meal of the first day. The main reason is because when I decide to look back on this trip I'd like to be able to read it from the top of the page to the bottom. It's more for me than for you. So... if this is confusing in any way, I apologize.

Enjoy!

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DAY 5 - NEW YORK CITY

~DINNER~

LUPA OSTERIA ROMANA
170 Thompson Street
New York, NY 10012
(212) 982-5089

Good-Bye New York and Philadelphia

It's already Wednesday and it's time for me to go back home to Orange County. I'm still swollen and full with a protruding gut but it was such an amazing trip. What more can you ask for than good food with good company to share them with?

I think I have blogging material for the next MONTH.

Come back frequently... I have TONS of delicious restaurants I need to tell you about.

Swollen and Full

It's my third day here in Philadelphia and I woke up this morning with a protruding gut and a swollen face. In the short time I've been here we've managed to eat at a good handful of places.

Melograno
2012 Sansom St
(215) 875-8116

Parc
227 S 18th St
(215) 545-2262

Dmitri's
944 N. Second St.
(215) 592-4550

Honey's Sit n Eat
800 North 4th Street
(215) 925-1150

I haven't taken too many photos because I wanted to enjoy the meals as much as possible without being a disturbance but I'll post about every place I've been to as thoroughly as possible.

Can't wait to show y'all what I've eaten.

The Fat Duck

(photo taken from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/)

A month or so ago Kelly (the man I work with) went on a little mini vacation to the UK for his birthday. Whenever he goes anywhere he makes it a point to visit many different restaurants to keep him current and fully aware of the trends in food. As a restaurant consultant.. it's his job to know what's what out there in the food industry.

One of the places he dined in was The Fat Duck. Sounds funny right? Yeah.. but this place is NO JOKE. I saw some of the photos that Kelly took of the meal and it seems extremely unusual for a casual dinner (one of the 8 or so courses came with a conk shell with an iPod in it with ear phones so you could listen to the waves while eating food on a glass plate with real sand underneath it). But from what Kelly told me... it was truly.. AN EXPERIENCE. And one of the best meals he's had in a long time.

London is known for bad food... but definitely not this place.

Even after 2 plates of dessert Kelly was able to walk out of the restaurant with a small bag of sweet goodies that he brought back for me. Perks of working with a man who's around food all the time!

I'll apologize now for the bad quality of photos. I took them in my room with very bad lighting.

Menu/description of what was in the bag.


The menu items and desserts played off the Alice and Wonderland theme due to the movie right around the time of its premiere.

In order..




I was expecting a chocolate truffle and it definitely wasn't. It was... interesting.




I think this would have been great if it wasn't stale. It was a good week or so by the time this left London and landed in my mouth. But it still had good intense flavor.


YUM. Melted in my mouth.


So cool...




I wonder how the got the preserves in there..

Quite fancy I must say. I wish I could have experienced the food! It sounded absolutely AMAZING.


I'll be leaving on a short trip to Philly tomorrow night and coming back next Wednesday. I can't wait to eat some good food. You KNOW I'll be documenting the entire trip. ;)

Stay tuned. It's going to be a calorie fest like none other.

Schubert's Bakery

A couple of weeks ago both my brothers made a trip up to San Fransisco. It was a short road trip and while they were there they Yelped a few restaurants to eat at. One of the most popular places for desserts was a place called Schubert's Bakery in the heart of China Town.

They had borrowed my car to drive up there so as a thank you they decided to buy me some pastries to bring back of the uber popular bakery.

They bought an ice box at Target and filled it with ice so that it would stay nice and cool for the 6 hour drive down.

It was actually really sweet of them. Unfortunately, I was in a bit of a sour mood so my reaction to their sweet gesture wasn't quite what they had expected. Regardless, I couldn't wait to dive in!!

I'll go in the order of Not-so-Great to YUM!

The Swedish Princess

The bright green outside is marzipan, which is a sugar dough made of almond paste. It's SUPER sweet and when used as a covering for a cake.. the thinner the better. I took a bite and the sweetness in the marzipan totally overwhelmed any of the other flavors the cake had. There were layers of white cake laced with raspberry preserves with a vanilla mousse-type cream. It didn't have much wow factor.

Mango Mousse

This cake reminded me of a cake I once got for Mother's Day at 85C Bakery in Irvine. There's a thin layer of cake that encases the cake and mousse. The top is a layer of gelatin. Looks gorgeous.. but flavor was absolutely lacking. I'm sure you can guess how many times I've been back to 85C for their cakes. Completely unimpressive in terms of taste.

"Special"

The sign couldn't be more wrong. Maybe what it's referring to is "we had to get rid of all these left over fillings and cake so let's make it into something we can sell". Always be weary of something that's "special." It actually wasn't too bad it just didn't have much flavor. MEH.. for sure.

Strawberry Cheesecake

This was ok. I think the strawberry flavor could have been stronger but overall, not too bad.

Chocolate Truffle

This was one of the best. It wasn't too intensely chocolate.. it was moist.. and pretty good. I kept going back to it so it was definitely a bright spot.

Fruit Tart?

I'm not sure what this one is called because the photos of the case my brothers took didn't have this in the frame. You can never really go wrong with fresh fruit, any vanilla cream, whipped cream, and a nice flaky crust. I've yet to find one that's done wrong.

I don't like saying or reading negative things about restaurants or food.. but I was just NOT impressed with this place. It's rated 4 out of 5 stars with over 800 reviews in Yelp and I just don't see why. I give it 3 stars. Sorry Schubert's Bakery.. but I'm a dessert snob.

He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

Some weeks ago I got to talking with one of the neighbors directly across from our apartment. Her name is Rett and she is a mom of 2 sons in their mid twenties. It turns out she loves to bake. We set aside some time for us to decorate some cookies and I decided to make this small bite-size treats.

I kept it pretty simple. These were really cute.. but when there's 60 of them.. it's a pain in the ass to decorate. So.. I just used some crystal sugar to decorate about half.

The plan was to give them to my church on Good Friday when we would gather to have service. The original plan was to put them in small clear bags and tie them with ribbon... but for 60?? Not gonna happen.

I remembered I had these wooden skewers for Evan's first birthday back in December and thought it would be a marvelous idea to stick them on these skewers and to have people grab them like lollipops.

Then when I went to shoot these I thought it would be fun to play around with different backgrounds. I always have a stash of scrapbooking paper in storage so I pulled some out and started shooting.

They were done on our dining table with as much light as I could get. I didn't think a reflector was necessary because there seemed to be sufficient light.. but you can see some shadowing in the photos. Oh well. Something to keep in mind for next time.

I know this post and photos are of cute bunnies, carrots, flowers, and pastel-y things.. but for me Easter is about something else entirely. Hope you have a blessed Easter Sunday.